Up Past Midnight

Don't Set Him Free - Part 1

"Why did I get picked for this?" Lilly asked as the boy up front unlocked the door of the third-floor science room to let the five students in.

"New students are always chosen. Think of it as a rite of passage. You get to know the history of the school while witnessing it first hand," Hannah said. Lilly wasn't sure why she was there either, Hannah was one of the popular girls. Unless she wanted to prove that she wasn't scared of ghosts.

"Witnessing it first hand? Come on, Hannah, it's all a load of crap. Nothing has ever happened at one of these things, and nothing ever will. Besides Lilly, you didn't have to come if you didn't want to. You could have backed out."

Lilly kept her mouth shut at that. She'd never been one to back out of a dare, and she wasn't about to start now. Ever since she'd transferred to Lakeland High School though, she'd felt uneasy. The longer she attended the school, the greater her unease became. Walking into that room, she felt like her heart was in her throat. It hadn't taken long to hear about the deaths that had taken place years before, mainly because she'd moved in close to the anniversary.

Every year on the same night the two had died, a group of students are dared to stay the night in the science room on the third floor. One person steals the janitor's keys, lets them all in, and then doesn't come back until the next morning.

Chad ushered them into the room before giving them a parting 'good luck', locking the door and taking off.

"Are we going to get in trouble for this?" Lilly asked again as everyone grabbed a stool from the lab tables and moved them into a circle in the center of the room.

"If we get caught, probably," one of the kids said as he took off his sweatshirt and draped it on his stool before sitting.

"I doubt we're going to get in trouble. Do you really think they don't know we do this? It's been going on for years. As long as we don't break anything they won't do anything," Timothy said.

Lilly looked around the room; the group that had gathered was completely mixed. It was a group of students you wouldn't normally see within thirty feet of one another. Timothy, the quarterback on the football team. Hannah, the cheerleader. Sam, the videogame nerd. Chase, the swimmer. Lilly, the new girl. The only two that made sense together were Hannah and Timothy.

"Let's get this thing started," Sam said.

"What's the rush? We have all night," Timothy chimed in.

"The faster we do the stupid séance, the faster we can go to our own little place in the room and wait out the rest of the night." Sam obviously wasn't a fan of having to share the room with two jocks and a cheerleader.

"Okay, let's do this then," Hannah said holding out her hands. Timothy took her hand on one side and Lilly took the other, holding out her free hand as the five made a connected circle.

"How are we supposed to do this?" Chase asked, looking at each person in turn.

"Does anyone know how to run one of these?" Lilly asked.

"If we were allowed to have our phones we could look it up," Hannah grumbled.

"You know the whole point of this is to spend the night completely alone without any outside help," Sam said pointedly.

"Yeah, but still. At least we could've like, gotten some information on how to do this," Hannah said with a glare.

"And if you would have been smart enough to think ahead," Timothy said, "You would have thought to look it up before tonight."

"Well did you?" Hannah shot back.

"I did."

"Then you lead it, babe."